ArcGIS Pro software licensing changes in beta 5

The beta 5 release of ArcGIS Pro is now available. You can download it from the ArcGIS Pro website or check for updates within ArcGIS Pro. This release has some important changes to the way you authorize your software license.

ArcGIS Pro follows a named user licensing model, where each user account is assigned permissions to access the software. Starting with beta 5, licenses for ArcGIS Pro are administered through your ArcGIS Online organizational account. This will be the software authorization method used for the remainder of the beta program, as well as in the final release.

If you’ve been using ArcGIS Pro beta, you’re already used to signing in to start the application. The difference now is that the organization administrator needs to assign each account a software license level and, optionally, any additional extensions. When you start ArcGIS Pro and sign in, the application runs with the level and extensions your administrator has specified.

If you’re not part of the beta program yet, remember that all current ArcGIS for Desktop customers are invited to join and download ArcGIS Pro. You can sign up on the ArcGIS Pro website.

Here’s what you need to do to use ArcGIS Pro.

If you are the administrator of an ArcGIS Online organization that is currently part of the ArcGIS Pro beta program, you need to use the ArcGIS Online website to specify which members can run ArcGIS Pro and the software licenses available to them. You can manage licenses for individual members or make bulk assignment updates. Licensing through Portal for ArcGIS will be available in a future beta release.

1. Sign in at www.arcgis.com. You must have an administrator role.
2. On the My Organization page, click the Manage Licenses button.

3. Assign licenses to members of your organization. You see graphs of the numbers of licenses available. The products and numbers of licenses you see in ArcGIS Online correspond to those to which your organization is entitled or has purchased.

You can contact Esri Customer Service (or send an email to service@esri.com) if you are part of the beta program but don’t see the Manage Licenses button.

If you are not an administrator in your organization, check with your administrator and make sure your license has been assigned. You should only update to beta 5 after you have confirmed that your account has a license. If your administrator has not set your license, ArcGIS Pro beta 5 will not run when you attempt to sign in.

After you start ArcGIS Pro, you can review your current licenses (requires signing in to view this link) by clicking the Project tab and clicking Licensing. If you need to work with ArcGIS Pro in a disconnected mode or if you run Python scripts outside of the ArcGIS Pro application, you can check out a license from this tab.

ArcGIS Pro can be installed on the same machine as other ArcGIS for Desktop releases, or on a machine without any Esri products. Keep in mind that only ArcGIS Pro uses licensing through the organization. The other ArcGIS for Desktop applications—ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcGlobe, and ArcScene—continue to use the local ArcGIS Administrator application to set levels and extensions.

Currently we have over 300 ArcGIS Desktop users that share 33 ArcInfo (Advance) and 28 ArcView (Basic) concurrent licenses along with 30 or 40 single use ArcView licenses. Are we going to be required to purchase 300 AGOL named users in order to migrate over to ArcGIS Pro? Since we have an ELA with ESRI we don’t even get a AGOL for every desktop license we own.

I have two questions:
1. Will there be any api or scripting tools to assign licenses to users?
2. Is the plan to allow users to be assigned just one Pro license level, or are there plans to allow multiple so that user could choose?

1. There are many different options for searching, grouping, and selecting named users as a means to assign licenses. There will not be a method for scripting the assignment of licenses at the first release.

2. ArcGIS Pro licenses, license levels, and extension licenses are based on your ArcGIS for Desktop licenses, however, it is simple to assign a user with ArcGIS for Desktop Advanced an ArcGIS Pro Basic license and vice versa if the various levels are in your license entitlement pool.. There will be a license administrator privilege that can be assigned to individuals or groups of users that will give them permissions to make these kinds of changes.

It seems to me as if there is a bit of confusion regarding the flexibility with ArcGIS Pro. We have been told by our Esri license administrator that:

“Customers will have to run the Pro license and regular Desktop license side by side, you have to be using one to use the other. If a user is running ArcGIS Pro and Desktop on the same machine, it’s not considered doubling up.”
In this Blog, it states the complete opposite that:

“ArcGIS Pro can be installed on the same machine as other ArcGIS for Desktop releases, or on a machine without any Esri products”.

So there is some confusion… Can anyone clarify on this?
Can you run ArcGIS Pro without having any other Desktop programs and only have named users in an ArcGIS Online Organizational account??

And if you have both desktop products and Pro, can you use the same extension license (for instance 3D analyst) on both products?

And furthermore on the webpage http://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/get-started/manage-licenses.htm
It states that:
“The products and numbers of licenses you see in ArcGIS Online correspond to those to which your organization is entitled or has purchased.”
Does this mean that you need two licenses if you want to run both ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro?? A lot of confusion on our side of the Atlantic

ArcGIS Pro has a different licensing model than ArcMap, but the entitlements are based on the same ArcGIS for Desktop license. Therefore, Esri does not consider using both ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap as “doubling up.” It is possible for a single licensed user to run ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro on separate machines considering that ArcMap is tied to a machine and ArcGIS Pro is tied to your Named User.

You can have ArcGIS Pro running on a machine without other ArcGIS for Desktop applications. You can also have ArcGIS Pro running on a machine with older versions of ArcGIS Desktop. We think this will be a real advantage to those organizations that need time to test their workflows on ArcGIS Pro.

The ArcGIS for Desktop license and extension licenses you have purchased entitle you to use both ArcMap with its extensions and ArcGIS Pro with its extensions. These are just enabled in different ways. With ArcMap it is still using the Single User or Concurrent Use license tied to your license server. ArcGIS Pro is enabled using ArcGIS Online Named Users. I find it helpful to just think of ArcGIS Online as a license server in the cloud.

The number of Desktop licenses, and their license levels, along with the extensions you have licensed correspond to the number of licenses you can use with ArcGIS Pro. The same license entitles you to use both ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro, so there is no need to purchase another license to run both ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro side by side.

What are you talking about? A single concurrent use license can server between 3 and 4 users since any one user will only be on 25 to 30% of the time. Even the most dedicated GIS Analyst will be using their license more than 50% of the time. Thus a pool of 10 licenses can easily serve 20 people.

So what ArcGIS Pro is really saying is you need to buy one $10,000 ArcInfo license (i.e., Advanced) license for every one of your users. That gets expensive very quickly.

Apparently the President of ESRI was misinformed by his staffed when he stated that ArcGIS Pro was “part of Desktop” at the Esri 2014 International Users Conference. It appears that ArcGIS Pro is really a thick client part of ArcGIS Online (i.e., ArcGIS Explorer Desktop’s big brother) and will require users to spend credits for GIS operations that used to be core to the desktop software (like addressing and routing). This will be a great new profit generating machine for Esri but still does not address the need to port ArcInfo back to a 64 bit operating system.

Your ArcGIS Online administrator needs to assign a license to your account. If you are the administrator and don’t see the ability to manage your organization’s licenses when you log in to ArcGIS Online, contact Esri Customer Service to make sure you are entitled to licenses and get them added to your organization.
See this help topic for more info: http://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/get-started/manage-licenses.htm